FML, haiku style.

Woke up on Friday
Throat sore from post-nasal drip
A cold has arrived

Slept on my left side
Now my ear is congested
Can’t get it to clear

Such perfect weather
Roommates outdoors enjoying
I’m sick and in bed.

Puffs Plus everywhere
Daily emergen-cee dose
More Tylenol Cold

Snot and phlegm are thick
Apologies if that’s gross
You don’t even know.

Nasal douche time now
Only one thing left to say
Here goes: FML

I hate being sick. I don’t have the time or energy for it during the school year, and it’s just mean to make me spend my much-deserved weekends sick in bed, especially in this perfect weather!

Posted: February 15th, 2010 under FML, Life, Weekends - No Comments. Tags: haiku, sick, whining

NYC Day 3 – Oct 25, 2009 (evening)

After returning to the hotel for a nap, we discovered our tickets were for 7:30 rather than 8, so we had a bit less time than we thought. No big deal. We slept for a bit, then headed to the Booth! The front row mezz seats we bought in advance were awesome. It’s hard to say if it was “worth it”. Broadway is insanely overpriced these days even with discounts – but that’s another rant for another day – I was thrilled with our seats, overpriced or not.

Although I could tell the two-show day was wearing a tiny bit on Alice’s voice, she was still mind-blowingly awesome. As was the rest of the cast. I can’t say anything bad about this show. I’d bought the cast recording quite awhile before the trip and was very, very familiar with the show, but despite knowing everything I did, it couldn’t have prepared me for what I saw. One spoken line in particular still haunts me to this day – “Four months for the life of my child.” Shivers up my spine. Amazing performances by all.

Speaking of performances, I’d overheard that it was the drummer’s last night. As such, he had a rockin’ solo after the curtain call, which was met with cheers from much of the audience.

We hit the stage door afterward, but sadly, Alice Ripley, Jennifer Damiano, and Aaron Tveit were no-shows. Ah well. (I’m an idiot when it comes to chatting at the stage door anyway. (I could know you for years and still sound like a fool after seeing your jaw-dropping performance; it’s not so much being star-struck as finding the right words so soon after an impressive display).

We were starving by then, so we headed west to Five Napkin Burger for dinner. I indulged in some beef despite the fact that my stomach despises it and loudly complains about it after eating. But sometimes you have to ignore the stomach’s ridiculousness to appease the tongue. And I was very glad I did. I got the “Original”. It’s not likely that I would agree one should ever pay $15 for a burger, but… this was… really good. And the wait staff was great, which always helps sooth price tag angst.

After that, it was back to the hotel to collapse into bed. Although I’d normally find it difficult to sleep after the euphoria of two shows in one day and seeing the magnificent Alice Ripley perform at all… exhaustion had me beat and I was out the second my head hit the pillow.

Posted: January 17th, 2010 under Fall 2009 NYC Trip, NYC, Theatre - No Comments.

NYC Day 3 – October 25th, 2009 (morning and afternoon)

This is beyond overdue. I told myself if I didn’t get all my trip recaps and photos online within two weeks, I would wait forever. Well, it’s not forever, but far longer than it should have taken. I know myself too well. ;) Without further ado…

Since L&J were due back to their apartment early, we got up early so we could head out and let the weary travelers sleep. We talked to them for a bit when they arrived, and headed out to start our day. Recalling from the previous day’s adventures that the MTA doesn’t want you to take the train on the weekend, we headed over to the 1 (RIP 9 train).

We headed over to the hotel we’d be sleeping at (for free thanks to an employee/friend with whom we’ll be staying later in the week), checked our bags, and headed out to Times Square.

Though slightly chillier than the previous day, there was not a cloud in the sky! Yay! A beautiful fall morning was ahead of us. We stopped at the Starbucks in Times Square. White mocha americano for me, cider for Rie, and a piece of pumpkin loaf for us both, which we enjoyed at the nouveau pedestrian mall that is Times Square.

Given the meager amount of people that actually sit at the tables on Broadway (which is now closed to street traffic), I think everyone is still confused about this. It certainly makes Times Square quieter, it’s kinda handy for walking around, it lightens the foot traffic, but it just feels and looks weird!

After getting some photos and video, we had time to kill, so we meandered up 7th St, feeling Central Park’s siren call beckoning us uptown. Unable and unwilling to fight its summons, we floated toward the park.

I could have so easily traipsed all the way to Central Park North, but we did have to head back down to the Neil Simon theatre (52nd St.) in time for the Ragtime lottery. As such, we stayed near the playground and baseball fields, people-watching, gazing at the fall colors, and reconnecting with one of my favorite parts of Manhattan.

After checking out some kind of protest on Central Park West, near the Trump building (nothing terribly exciting or interesting), we walked back down by way of Columbus Circle.

Although we did not luck out at the Ragtime lottery (I have horrid luck when it comes to those things for the most part), we took a look at ticket prices, feeling drawn to the $46.50 rear mezzanine seats. The number sounded familiar and I whipped out my iPhone to check my saved Playbill discount emails. Sure enough, there was a $46.50 mid-mez coupon (seats regularly $80-something). WOO! We went to the box office, the guy asked if we had a print out, so I slid my iPhone with the email on it under the box office window.

This was my proudest moment as an iPhone owner. The guy behind us (who’d merely written down his code) was impressed by my geekery as well. ;) We had a fun chat with him – I love bonding with people in lines.

We had about an hour to kill before the show, so we headed over to Hale & Hearty for some soup and half a sandwich for lunch. Ahh, I missed that little local chain.

Ragtime was incredible. A few weak spots and a sour note or two from Coalhouse, but overall well worth seeing (love the original Broadway cast recording and the Papermill cast). One thing I hate about LA theatre is that no one gives a crap about the orchestra. It’s all about who can get to their car fastest. And so I forgot that NY audiences are for more appreciative as a LOT of the audience stayed behind to applaud the orchestra after they finished. And they were so, so deserving. Full orchestras are where it’s at. Let’s make it the norm, Broadway!!

After Ragtime, we headed back to the hotel to grab a nap before Next to Normal.

Posted: January 17th, 2010 under Fall 2009 NYC Trip, NYC, Theatre - No Comments.

NYC Day 2 – October 24th: Evening Post

Rain, rain, rain.

It wasn’t too bad this afternoon. There were moments where it would sprinkle, then stop, then a few minutes later, downpour. Then, a few minutes after that, nothing. Figured the Yankees/Angels game would be good to go.

One thing that has not changed about New York is the craptastic weekend train schedule. We walked to the A-C line to find that it was running express. Unsure if the shuttle was free or not (our Metro cards were only good for the subway since the greedy MTA made some evil changes to the pricing structure), we walked over to the 1. Feels weird to not say 1-9 =( RIP 9 train. Anyway. Took that down to 42nd St which took FOREVER.

We had lunch with J at Joshua Tree in midtown. I missed that Asian chicken salad SO much. YUM! After talking for a bit, we parted ways, and got in line at TKTS.

We got three tickets to “Superior Donuts” which K was seeing with us. From there, Rie and I headed to Starbucks to get some caffeine and make a plan of attack for Sunday. We left there to head to the box offices of a few different theatres to inquire about rush policies and other ticket-related questions. LOVE the Shubert organization’s LCD screens with the ticket prices in the lobbies – very handy.

After that, we met K at Ollie’s for dinner.

Around this time, it started pouring non-stop. Torrential downpour style. Eek! By the time we reached the Music Box Theatre, we were DRENCHED.

The play was amazing. So much so, I forgot I was sitting there feeling so wet. Michael McKean and Jon Michael Hill were fantastic. I better see some Tony noms there.

After the show, we headed back uptown, excited by the prospect of dry clothes and sleep.

Got one. About to get the other.

Posted: October 24th, 2009 under Fall 2009 NYC Trip, NYC, Theatre - No Comments.

NYC Days 1 & 2 – October 23rd & 24th

NEW YORK TRIP! It finally worked out and we’re HERE!

I am currently sprawled on a bed in Inwood. Friends of Rie (my roommate/friend/travel companion) who crashed with us one night before heading off to a cruise handed Rie the key to their apartment and told us to stay there while they were gone. Who does that?! Really awesome people.

Really awesome people are really how this trip is working at all. We are crashing with various friends throughout the week who are kindly lending us some floor space for luggage and bags and a place to crash. AND I LOVE YOU ALL.

Last night, we flew into JFK and hopped on the shuttle bus to Grand Central ($15!). There was a LOT of traffic, so plans to try and see a show that night were thrown out the window, which we were actually pretty happy about since sitting in a theatre right after sitting on a plane was seeming less and less appealing.

We finally arrived well after 8pm. We, then, walked over to the hotel a friend works at to say hi and change into something less… plane-worn. Heh. After that, we headed up to City Diner on the Upper West Side – our 24 hour diner of choice when we lived up there – and had dinner. Ordering the same appetizer (potato skins!) and meals (BLT and grilled chicken club, trading half of each with each other) we frequently ordered back in the day. Just like coming home.

It was raining like crazy and I was pretty sick of dragging my luggage up and down subway stairs (Rie left hers at the hotel), so we hopped in a cab to Inwood. The cost of taking a cab has increased significantly. The cabs, themselves, have been upgraded. This one had a touch-screen monitor with GPS and news items and all sorts of crazy impressive things. Wow!

We dropped our stuff off, breathed a relieved sigh to be at our first destination, and went out to find some cheap wine to celebrate with. It was probably the worst Merlot I have ever tasted. But it was nice to kick back with a glass of wine and watch some NY1.

We both started fading pretty quickly after that and, after an episode of Friends, started getting ready for bed.

This morning, we had initially planned to get up early, head to TKTS and try to get shows to a matinee, but Rie’s alarm was NOT welcome. We decided to, instead, bail on the matinee and sleep in.

Now that we’re up, we have been productive. Dinner plans had been made last night with K and now we have lunch plans with J. We are going to try to see a show tonight, not sure what yet. We have tickets to “Next to Normal” on Sunday and the rest will be gotten day of.

It’s so great to be back here. It’s weird that it doesn’t feel weird to be here. It felt completely normal to grab a 2 train uptown from 42nd St. To know that we needed to be toward the back of the train for our stop (and because it’s less crowded there). More on that later. Gotta get dressed for lunch!

Posted: October 24th, 2009 under Fall 2009 NYC Trip, NYC - No Comments.

Beach, swimsuits, and childhood

My roommates (who consist of one of my best friends and my sister) dragged me out of bed at 9:30 this morning. After a late night last night where the three of us stayed up till 2am. I was anticipating this, but it still pained me to abandon my pillows.

It wasn’t long before the early wakeup call felt very worth it. We got ideal parking (free on one of the residential streets as opposed to the metered parking at the beach), there was not a cloud in the sky, the weather was gorgeous, and there was hardly anyone there.

That’s the best part about Long Beach. Sunset, Seal, Redondo, and Huntington Beach are so close and cater so much more to the more touristy beach goers (snack bars, nearby establishments with food and drink) and surfers (we have a breakwater that makes the waves pretty nonexistent), that Long Beach gets completely overlooked except by the locals.

It was a wonderful day to be at the beach. My roommates swam for a bit while I remained a land-lubber this time. No offense to the ocean, I was just far too content on the sand to head to the water today.

I got a bit pink, but otherwise came out pretty unscathed. We stayed till around 2 and headed home, stopping at the nearby 7-11 for a free 7.11 ounce Slurpee (it being July 11th and all). A bit of cherry and a bit of Coca Cola flavor for me. I’m not a huge fan of the syrupy flavored ice, so the small cup was the perfect size for me. We got home, found ourselves ravenous, and one roommate offered to head to Ruby’s to pick up “dunch” or “linner” (lunch/dinner). YUM.

After eating, we found ourselves sprawled among the living room, feeling a bit drained from spending four hours at the beach.

I’ve been doing laundry since, as well as catching up on blogs and YouTube subscriptions… still in my bathing suit.

When I was a kid, we lived in an awesome townhome complex with our choice of about 5 different pools. And my grandparents had a pool. And we weren’t too far from the beach. And we had a lot of kids in our neighborhood, so water balloon fights, water gun fights, and “chase each other with buckets of water” fights were pretty common. Regardless of the water-based activity of choice, it was always exciting to have a reason to don the swimsuit.

Changing into clothes after a day of water and fun in the sun was like surrendering the freedom of summer. I remember hating taking a shower and changing into normal clothes. Of course, I was the kid who found it completely absurd that my parents wanted us to get out of the pool at 10pm after only being in there all day…

It is now 8:45pm and I am still in my swimsuit. I can’t help but feel a bit child-like. Feeling sundrenched and beachy, I’m trying not to think about the fact that I have to morph back into adulthood and leave for work at 5:30 tomorrow morning.

Posted: July 11th, 2009 under Long Beach, Summer, Weekends - No Comments. Tags: childhood, nostalgia, ocean, roommates, the beach, water

Theatre, the Tony Awards… and studentia.

First off, while I think Next to Normal deserved more Tony Awards than it received, I’m infinitely pleased by Alice Ripley’s win as that mattered most to me. Nothing more exciting than seeing a performer who’s worked her buns off finally get recognized for it.

It didn’t really dawn on me how long it had been since she’d actually been on Broadway since I’ve been lucky enough to see her do so many other things in the meantime. The Baker’s Wife at Papermill (amazing) and after I’d moved out to the west coast, she did Little Fish out here which I absolutely loved. Not to mention Ripley concerts at the Red Lion in NY and, out in soCal, I think we saw her at The Mint? Can’t remember. But I feel incredibly lucky to have seen Alice perform on both coasts over the past several years. Her temporary move to California coincided with mine and I’m very grateful to her for thinking of me. ;) (I kid, I kid! Though it does help abate a girl’s homesickness when performers she associates with New York suddenly appear on the west coast!)

I made the mistake of swinging by a rather well-known Broadway message board after the Tonys to see what people had to say.

Lots of slamming of Alice’s speech… this confused and baffled me. I’d thought it was a great speech, particularly given the amount of show she’s done at the Kennedy Center (Next to Normal among them). And knowing the ridiculous (and completely unacceptable) amount of sound problems that were evident throughout the show, I did, actually, attribute her loudly spoken words to that. Heck, if we could hear stuff not working on TV and hear sound people yelling into mics before running onstage with them (ahem), I assume stuff wasn’t working at the show either. Turns out, I was correct as someone who’s friends with Ripley on Facebook reported on said message board. Well, duh.

Nevertheless, people were excessively nasty and downright cruel. About a speech! About the volume at which a speech-giver gave the speech and implying that she’s insane because of it?! Good lord, people!

What I love most about theatre is the ability to directly portray what it means to be human. For example, Next to Normal is largely about dealing with grief. How one copes, or doesn’t. And what each of the characters in Next to Normal go through is so incredibly human and real. I love that. I love that I can connect with each of the characters and feel what it’s like to experience their lives as they do.

So it’s such an odd thing, to me, to see an actress win an award for a part in a show that requires an open mind and heart… and, afterward, read about people slamming those same doors shut just to be unnecessarily mean.

I should mention these are the same message boards that caused Laura Benanti some major frustrations years ago when she was missing performances in Into the Woods due to a broken neck. Ah, but I guess that’s humanity, too. People are always more willing to judge and develop their own  opinions rather than ponder that there is, perhaps, a reasoning beyond the limits of their own minds for various occurences.

Onto life as a student…

I’m greatly enjoying my necessary summer break. It’s nice to go straight home after work and not have to worry about homework, reading, or studying. Though I’m already getting antsy for next semester. Funny how that works.

I have mostly been focusing on what classes to take. I was inititally intending to mostly take theatre classes since I desperately need to be reminded what I’m doing here (missing NYC quite a lot lately).

I have recently discovered that theatre classes are mostly day classes. While this is all well and good for young students whose parents can afford to support them so they don’t have to work during the day, this is extremely unhelpful to those of us who are older, have rent and bills to pay, and need a job to do that.

I’m not sure what to do just yet. Friday is my “Saturday” and I’d like to be able to actually have a weekend, though by the looks of things, I may be squeezing several classes into one Friday. This sucks for many reasons, one being that once-a-week classes are exponentially more difficult than twice-a-week classes. For me, anyway.

Even if I could change my work schedule to allow me to take day classes during the week, if I got cast in a show (which would be really, really nice), I’d need evenings to do that.

I really bothers me that the system is designed to encourage adults not to go back to school. Everyone I know always tries to say “it’s never too late!” but what they don’t tell get is that colleges don’t really agree with that. Rules are in place to tame flighty teenagers, curriculum is designed around their just-out-of-high-school mindset, and schedules cater to their lifestyles rather than the lifestyle of the responsible adult.

It makes me sad. I’m second-guessing the whole school thing even though it’s what I moved back to California for and one of the most important parts of my life right now. Arrrgh!

Posted: June 13th, 2009 under Life, NYC, School, Television, Theatre - No Comments. Tags: Alice Ripley, college life, Non-Traditional Studentia, The Tony Awards

Tony Awards Tomorrow!

Got your ballots ready?

I printed mine out from the Tony’ Awards website and am currently in the process of filling it out. And researching because there are more categories than I expected that I’m not familiar enough with. Oops. My roommate and I are watching “Show Business – the Road to Broadway” as we research and check boxes. Our ballots are looking a bit different, so this should be interesting!

All I can say is that I really, really want to see Alice Ripley win.

Oh. And this is really, really making miss New York.
(moreso than usual, that is).

Posted: June 6th, 2009 under Theatre - No Comments. Tags: Broadway, Tony Awards

Supporting the gays

Today, the California Supreme Court made a decision that, well, seemingly made no sense. I was actually expecting the hateful Proposition 8 to be overturned, to be honest. A small inkling of hope amid my typically cynical perspective… alas, I should have maintained my cynicism.

And so, I stalked Twitter, checking out the trends for #prop8 and #rejectprop8 which ranged from irate to inspiring. And the, of course, the random person who seems to feel that allowing all couples to marry somehow affects those who already can…

I had already heard, thanks to the local newspaper, the Press Telegram, that Long Beach would either be having a celebration march or a protest so after the decision was posted, I emailed the girls (my roommates – who consist of one of my best friends and my sister) and asked if they wanted to head down after work. Of course they did!

The March

At 7pm, we walked down to Broadway and started heading toward the street where it was set to start, figuring we’d just watch. You can’t really just watch, though.

We stood and cheered them along, shedding a tear or ten every so often. Families. Kids with straight parents, kids with gay parents. Couples. Single people. All different sizes, colors, ages, and genders (is it any wonder the gay community is represented by a rainbow flag?). There were churches there too, notably, St. Luke’s Episcopal and Refiner’s Fire United Church of Christ (the latter of whom passed out some blue wristbands!). My roommate also recognized a few people from her Catholic church, St. Matthew’s.

The Flags

We joined in at the tail, happy to add to the already impressive mass of people walking and support all those ahead of us in their cause. It’s always important to me to stay back a bit so as not to interfere with a pride that doesn’t belong to me. This was their moment to be angry and proud. Their moment to inspire each other to keep moving forward and continue fighting… and to let that pride and inspiration, in turn, inspire me.

My favorite sign of the night: “You haven’t won, you’ve inspired a movement that will overturn your hate.”

You Call This Threatening? Really?

Our experiences are necessarily different. I have the right to marry. I can read about Stonewall, I can read about Harvey Milk. But I can never fully understand what it’s like. And that’s okay. What I do understand is enough to make me feel hurt and angry for them so I certainly don’t mind stepping back a bit and letting them be proud of who they are, despite what the California state government wants them to feel.

I was proud to be at the Long Beach protest/rally/march today. I am proud to be a straight, single female supporting gay rights. And I will be proud when our nation as a whole gets rid of this Orwellian idea that we are all equal, but some are “more equal than others”.

—

A few related links:

• Day of Decision
• LBequality.org

Posted: May 26th, 2009 under Life, Long Beach, Social Issues - No Comments. Tags: civil rights, politics, proposition 8 protest

I don’t have time for this post!

I’m sitting here in my living room on my “Saturday” (which is Friday since my work week is Sunday through Thursday). I’m being a good student and focusing on three of my four classes.

Working 40 hours a week and taking 12 units of classes sounded so much easier before school actually started. I now understand the raised eyebrows of current students.

It isn’t easy being just shy of 30 and trying to balance all of this. The college system works in such a way to make things extremely difficult for us non-traditional students and I’m not sure why that is. Especially non-traditional students like myself who are even more non-traditional than the rest. Getting a degree in theatre isn’t something most people my age would do.

My schedule keeps me feeling perpetually guilty. There is always something I need to be doing, and something I am feeling guilty for not doing. If I’m not at work or in class, I usually feel terribly guilty for not focusing on something related to one of them. Or if I take time for myself, I not only feel guilty for not working on something for school, I I feel guilty for not keeping in touch with long distance friends or family I haven’t seen in forever. Or I have guilt about an upcoming freelance project I need to be preparing for. Or the personal projects I always wish I had time to focus on (like this blog).

I don’t feel like I have the weight of *THE* world on my shoulders, but I do feel like I have the weight of my own little world constantly on my shoulders. At least if I were worried about the world at large, I’d have a little peace in that there’s nothing I can do about it, but with my own world weighing me down, I always feel bad for not doing more than I am.

*sigh*

Today, I’m trying to get as much done as possible today so I can spend tomorrow outdoors, enjoying the estimated high of 80F without too much guilt.

Posted: February 27th, 2009 under Life, School - No Comments.